


Make Sure That E♑eryone Knows Your Sign

by Samsara



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe-Bloodswap, Gen, Mutant Gamzee, Other, bloodswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 11:27:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samsara/pseuds/Samsara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamzee Makara is a mutant with a dream. A dream of equality. But that's stupid. Dreams don't come true. Especially not for mutants.</p><p>(Bloodswap AU, involving Mutant!Gamzee and Indigo!Karkat, as well as other bloodswaps.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Sure That E♑eryone Knows Your Sign

A day like any other, watching out the window for the little gimp of a sea-goat as he swims up to shore, limping as he brings in the daily catch for you. He stumbles a little on the first step towards the door, always has, and he drops down a single fish on the floor before bleating at you, eyes looking bloodshot and exhausted from swimming with eyes open, without the protective layer to allow him vision without the wicked sting of the ocean.

He bleats at you, or for you rather, as you busy yourself in the next room, hands motioning along a canvas, creating an image from the blood of culled wigglers, obtained rather illegally. You cease what you’re doing, and rub your hands along your shirt, smearing color all over your clothes, avoiding getting too much on the ash grey symbol of Capricorn emblazed on the fabric. The slightest dribble of color may indicate to others what color you’ve been hiding for so long.  
You enter your kitchen, the gimpy little seagoat bleating at you angrily, stamping a shriveled leg on the ground, and slapping his tail on the tiles. He’s telling you to turn the stove on if you want to eat. You’ll have to make it yourself if you’re hungry. You stare at the goat, eyes narrowed, a vein twitching in your skull, plump with a confectionary-sweet color.

“Dad, there’s still no power.” You say to the goat as he bleats again, even louder. He’s yelling at you, telling you to make power another way. It’s going to be freezing soon, and if you don’t get power, or heat in some form, you’re going to die tonight from the lack of warmth.

Sighing, you figure out what the old man wants. It’s not so much about the food, but about everything else.

You’re an artist. You’ve felt this beating in your veins since grubhood. You were going to paint beautiful images for all to see, telling of the beauty of a religion you so secretly follow, and the phenomenal lessons that are taught. You have a dream of putting your secret faith’s stories into images, so that the illiterate or ignorant can appreciate this faith of yours too. They don’t have to follow it, you don’t care much if they do. After all, art is meant for appreciation, not religious conversion.

But your work is controversial. Your work needs to be kept hidden from windows at all times. Never may it be hung upon walls, and never may others admire it. At least, that’s the case for now. One day, you’re sure that this planet will become peaceful, and you hope that you can help be a part of that. And maybe, your paintings of your faith, which speaks of equality and joy of most wicked and most just ways. An image can say a thousand words, together, your paintings are a never ending anthology of greatness.

But your lusus is scared for you, angry that you would invest so much time and energy into such a dangerous craft. Art and fashion are two medias that no one on Alternia celebrates. Both crafts have been deemed stupid by all, and the only art that merits acceptance on a wide scale is the art of film. Novels and paintings? You have to be some kind of strange folk to find interest in either of those things. Your lusus does not want you to be strange. He knows you already are, cursed with a most unfortunate color of fluid flowing through your lanky frame. He wants you to gain as little attention as possible, to hide much like he does. But unlike him, you can’t hide beneath the waves, curling up in some submerged cavern, awaiting for the tides to calm down. No, you live in this wreck of a hive. Four small rooms along the ocean so that your lusus could go to his own place, and you to yours. But you never installed properly working electricity. So you lived in the cold most of your life, and every night, your lusus would complain to you about your faults, before bleating frantically and storming back into the sea.

He’s made it pretty obvious what you have to do if you want to get through the night without turning into a Gamzicle. And every half a sweep or so, you go through the same routine. The glorious paintings you spent so long perfecting will become firewood.

You know there’s something ironic about it, but you’re a little too heart broken to figure out just what it is.

So as your lusus limps off, leaving the single fish on the floor for you, you watch as he vanishes beneath the surface. You’re left alone with your paintings and a dream that you’re too stubborn to abandon.

They crackling sound of fire popping isn’t nearly as comforting as you would have hoped, as canvases pucker and split, burning away. The scent of turpentine clogs up the air in your hive, but you don’t dare go out for fresh air. It’s gotten too cold. There’s almost something beautiful about watching the colors splattered on your canvases melt and dribble into flaming auras of the spectrum. Dribbles of paint drip from corners of some of the canvas, on to the floor. If the floor was not being charred from the flames, you know there would be a truly gorgeous display of color on the floor once the flames died down.

But such is the way for starving artists at the bottom of the spectrum. You get survival, or you get to dream. Survival usually trumps dreams.

But not this night. As the fire flickers on, you make a decision to have your cake and eat it too. A careless hand dips itself into the sopor slime of your recuperacoon. You dabble in the hallucinogenic substance, but only to ignite the flames of your own inner Picasso. You see colors you didn’t know existed when you close your eyes, and visions of your religion as a device of revolution. You’d like to see that one day, but you know it’s so impossible. But it’s another dream.

But dreams do come true sometimes.

As the sticky substance works its magic in your pan, just a tiny bit, you find your inspiration in a dribble of red much like your own. You get the idea of a story, about a troll much like you, a freak in color, but in stature as well. He’s incredibly tall, taller than you, nearly the size of your hive. His arms are long, gangly things and when everyone sees him, they call him a monster. But instead of showing himself as a beast, he sits down on the ground in a crowd of people, holding up a pipe—a peace pipe—and he begins to speak. He’s chanting, telling of his dream to stand among trolls of all colors, as equals. He dreamed of being able to break bread with trolls tyrian and tiny, as well as trolls brown and bulbous. He was a gentle giant, who wanted nothing more than to love and be loved in return, despite his most fearsome appearance.

You’ve lost yourself in your daydream, considering this moment of flame and hallucination to be some sort of religious experience. You tell yourself it must be as the walls are not covered in the tale of this gentle giant, wearing a large cloak with a curved v-like symbol dangling from his neck, as he crouched down to smile and hold the hands of other trolls. You don’t know who this gentle giant is, but you like to think he is the Goliath, a figure from your religion known to be judged for what he was, not for who he was. But even with all the cruelty he faced, he still treated everyone with such kindness and compassion, always offering his peacepipe to them.

You don’t think your lusus is going to be able to tell you to burn your walls for warmth this time. Your paintings are here to tell a story, and these ones aren’t going anywhere.

Your name is Gamzee Makara.

You are six sweeps old, and you have a most unfortunate blood color. For you see, the color that runs through your veins is not on the spectrum. You are a mutant. Your blood is as red as the fluid that pours from wild beasts. You live secluded, fearful of getting too close to anyone, because you are so different. You have a fondness for the arts, particularly painting and classical poetry, and use both as a means of expressing your anxiety with the oppression you feel by having to hide your color. You believe strongly that one day, you can befriend anyone without fear of being culled for your mutation. You hold on to a religion that most people consider pagan nowadays, as it combines aspects of a dead religion with the appeal of the Cult of Mirthful Messiahs. Those who know of your faith think you’re strange, but you don’t mind. You believe what you want. You generally are a friendly individual when you meet people, but deep down, you’re always a little bit scared that you might get betrayed. Try as you might, you just keep going, trying to be an optimist. At least you have a handful of friends that you’re sure won’t abandon you. Your trollian chumhandle is toxicityConnoisseur and you speak in a manner that’s JuSt A bIt WhImSiCaL aLtHoUgH yOu WaNt To MaKe SuRe ThAt E♑ErYoNe ReMeMbErS yOuR sIgN.


End file.
